by David StringerLONDON - The United States was "hell bent" on a 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war, a former British diplomat told an inquiry Friday.

Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, said that President George W. Bush had no real interest in attempts to agree on a U.N. resolution to provide explicit backing for the conflict.

At this point, the reasons for going to war in Iraq are increasingly becoming irrelevant.

..perhaps, except that if the history is not studied and understood, we'll simply repeat the mistakes in the future..

..we must "never forget"..

..bush started war planning for Iraq before 9/11 ever happened..

..in fact, 9/11 was merely the catalyst needed to convince us to go to war there..

..bush "fixed the intelligence" to support the war in Iraq..

..bush lied, and thousands of US servicemen died, and several hundred thousand Iraqis died, and millions were displaced..

..bush "moved the goal posts" depending on need, first we entered Iraq for WMD's (although strangely, we didn't prepare for protecting those WMD's when found, sorta like we knew they wouldn't be there)....etc, etc..

..remember, sadam tries to buy uranium from Niger?..

..or the "aluminum tubes proof"??..

..or the WMD's shipped to Syria?..

..or sadam was involved with 9/11 terrorists?..

..or that the US is obeying the Geneva conventions?..

..how about Jessica Lynch?...or Pat Tillman?..

..how about Paul Bremer telling us, "The Iraqi people are now free."..

..or "god" told Bush to invade Iraq..

..I could go on and on, and on, but just when do we want to stop forgetting, at what point does this all become "irrelevant"??..

..to me, we need to INCREASE our examination of the war in Iraq, we need to hold the Bush administration accountable, and heads should "literally" roll..

Those of us paying attention and later listening to Air America before the 2004 elections had heard this all. Heck the Downing Street Memo was all over the place, no? Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and even now Senator Al were telling us all about this stuff.

..I could go on and on, and on, but just when do we want to stop forgetting, at what point does this all become "irrelevant"??..

I agree with your premise, and I was right in the middle of pointing it out..... three to five years ago. But unfortunately, there are some who are spending all of their precious energy assigning blame, and very little- thinking through the steps necessary to get us out of Iraq.

"Remembering the past so that we don't repeat it"... great quote by Santayana, but unfortunately it is also true that those who spend most of their time "remembering" usually get run over by a truck coming from the future.

It's a done deal. We cannot prevent the past. The troops are in Iraq and it's a mess. We know who put them there... OK. Now it's time to spend our best energy figuring out a way to get them out.

"Remembering the past so that we don't repeat it"... great quote by Santayana, but unfortunately it is also true that those who spend most of their time "remembering" usually get run over by a truck coming from the future.

It's a done deal. We cannot prevent the past. The troops are in Iraq and it's a mess. We know who put them there... OK. Now it's time to spend our best energy figuring out a way to get them out.

I think getting the troops out of Iraq is going to happen in a very natural way -- they will be redeployed to Afghanistan because at this point we care a lot more about Afghanistan than Iraq, and the supply of troops is limited. The withdrawal from Iraq will probably have consequences that nobody likes, and all parties to the discussion will blame one another in an irrelevant fury. This bad outcome was inevitable and easily foreseeable the moment the invasion began.

And I think that the history we now need to learn from is that of the Vietnam War, because the Afghan war shows every sign of being very similar. I refer you to an excellent recent column by Jonathan Schell in The Nation:

The problem of the missing government is no detail of policy; it is fatal to the whole enterprise. And the absence is even more acute in Afghanistan today than it was in Vietnam. Johnson's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, pointed out in 1965 that the government of South Vietnam was a "non-government." And the same year Under Secretary of State George Ball, an in-house dissenter, wrote, "The 'government' in Saigon is a travesty. In a very real sense, South Vietnam is a country with an army and no government." The difference in Afghanistan in 2009? No army, either. (That's why one difficulty that plagued Vietnam, repeated coups d'état, is one problem the United States does not have in Afghanistan.) After touring the Garmsir District in Afghanistan recently, New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins wrote, "In Garmsir, there is nothing remotely resembling a modern state that could take over if America and its NATO allies left." In January a Defense Department report stated, "building a fully competent and independent Afghan government will be a lengthy process that will last, at a minimum, decades." Yet without such a government, US policy in Afghanistan is not merely destined to fail; it is incoherent. In a sense, it is not a policy at all. There is a lot in Afghanistan that is different from Vietnam, but this much is the same or worse.

It's a done deal. We cannot prevent the past. The troops are in Iraq and it's a mess. We know who put them there... OK. Now it's time to spend our best energy figuring out a way to get them out.

the difference being that getting out is a very difficult political-military-diplomatic puzzle* that WE schmoes don't really have the expertise for ...or the power

whereas 'examining the past' can be a "teaching moment" that might affect Next Time.**

/>:

* read an interesting (and to me, convincing argument) that if Obama gets out of Afghanistan, he's a One-term. if he gets out of Iraq without 'victory', he's One-term. Ergo, don't expect anything before 2014.

** though, as Crassfool notes below ... we didn't learn much from Vietnam

I agree with your premise, and I was right in the middle of pointing it out..... three to five years ago. But unfortunately, there are some who are spending all of their precious energy assigning blame, and very little- thinking through the steps necessary to get us out of Iraq.

"Remembering the past so that we don't repeat it"... great quote by Santayana, but unfortunately it is also true that those who spend most of their time "remembering" usually get run over by a truck coming from the future.

It's a done deal. We cannot prevent the past. The troops are in Iraq and it's a mess. We know who put them there... OK. Now it's time to spend our best energy figuring out a way to get them out.

..I certainly understand your point, and I agree we need to get out of Iraq asap..

..but I think Americans need to remember that our enemies will be attacking us hundreds of years from now because of our actions in the ME today..

I recently watched an interview with Max Cleland on the Charlie Rose Show (it was a gut-wrenching interview for a number of reasons).

They talked a bit about Afghanistan. Max Cleland made what I think is an important point: in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese regulars and the Viet Cong simply vanished into safe havens in North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos whenever the US military arrived on the scene. They did this over and over and over again. They didn't just go toe-to-toe against US military might (that woulda been suicidal). No, they simply skirmished and hid, skirmished and hid. It really didn't matter how many troops (or dollars) we threw into the fray. They could hit-and-run into perpetuity.

The same thing is happening in Afghanistan. If we move into the southern provinces, the Taliban retreat into Pakistan or into the western provinces. If we engage them in the eastern Kush range, they move into the northern provinces. The Taliban aren't fighting to retain territorial gains. Not in the least. They operate freely over 80% of the terrain...simply coming and going...and killing when they can.

I've changed my stance on Afghanistan. I once believed it was in our best interest (and morally justified) to remain in that country in an effort to bring stability and some measure of order and human decency. I've given it a lot of thought, watched or read interviews/articles/analyses of the situation (particularly the dismal general election fiasco), and have truly come to believe that Afghanistan remains the country where "empires come to die".

I feel for the Afghanis. I really do. They've been bombed and tortured into the Stone Age. I say it's up to them to chart their own course. It's something they gotta do on their own.

The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

Not surprisingly, the above document (at least to my eyes) is no longer present in the PNAC archives. Too blatant, perhaps.

Whatever evil genius is the driving force behind PNAC is surely reclined in a Dr. Evil (of Austin Powers fame) type bunker in the heart of a volcano, laughing devilishly and wringing their hands in anticipation of fulfilling their plot for global domination. Their objectives have been largely accomplished and, more importantly, have succeeded in shaping U.S. foreign policy and military investment for at least a decade. Whether or not their ultimate plan involves sharks with lasers on their heads has yet to be revealed.

As you said, the Security Council faces a vote next week on a resolution implicitly authorizing an attack on Iraq. Will you call for a vote on that resolution, even if you aren't sure you have the votes?

BUSH: Well, first, I don't think--it basically says that he is in defiance of 1441. That's what the resolution says.

And it's hard to believe anybody saying he isn't in defiance of 1441 because 1441 said he must disarm.

And yes, we'll call for a vote.

Q: No matter what?

BUSH: No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council.

I've changed my stance on Afghanistan. I once believed it was in our best interest (and morally justified) to remain in that country in an effort to bring stability and some measure of order and human decency. I've given it a lot of thought, watched or read interviews/articles/analyses of the situation (particularly the dismal general election fiasco), and have truly come to believe that Afghanistan remains the country where "empires come to die".

You may be right, but the previous administration never gave the proper attention nor resources to Afghanistan and I think we have an obligation to do so before we can decide if it's worth it to continue or not.